Some school and music memorabilia. — Emily Paine Carter, special to So Salem

Emily Paine Carter is columnist So Salem. You can contact her at 981-3430 or via e-mail.

Emily Paine Carter

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After the column on Mary Volpe Crowder's remarkable collection of Andrew Lewis High School memorabilia, we were curious about readers' keepsakes.

So we asked -- with apologies for repurposing excellent novelist Tim O'Brien's title -- what are the things you "carry?" The keepsakes you treasure? Are they gathered into HGTV-worthy displays?

Or just tossed into cardboard boxes? Surely we could put our mitts on 'em, if only we had time for an archaeological dig. (Remember my home motto: It's Around Here Somewhere.) Anyhow, it's fun to think about our collections. Some readers told me about their "stuff," but hesitated to publish photos, lest others lust after their treasures. (Call it another sign of These Troubled Times, dang it.)

Like cheerleader Mary, some have saved reminders of dear old schooldays. Former ALHS "Spokesman" co-editor Doug Sutton brought vintage school papers for a display table at the Class of 1967's ("The Best") 40th reunion. (Rather than schlepping them back to Richmond, he entrusted them to, uh, "someone"; they're in her "around here somewhere"-category.)

And Jeanne Tingler Yopp's "we're turning 60"-party invitation to girlhood pals asked us to bring memorabilia, including photos. So super-achiever Caroline Waldrop Haddock brought DVDs of parents Luke and Harriett Waldrop's old home movies -- complete with a soundtrack of music from each era.

(If you want duplicates of your own movies, allow plenty of time to roll-your-own. On deadline, serious fretting may occur -- as my own "burning" attempts proved. So, alas to my would-be-heroic attempts to share footage of Powder Puff football, birthday and slumber parties, Louise Hoback's and Joan Downing's dance recitals, horse shows, and even Academy St. and North Cross-in-Salem's May Day and third-grade graduation ceremonies. Diagnosis: operator malfunction of the techno-kind. Maybe next time....)

Among our youthful mementos are high school sports memorabilia (say, those ALHS football championship license plates). Or an album recording highlights from the school year -- mentioned by reader Tom Harvey and others.

Some keep concert ticket stubs -- nicely predating today's computer printouts. Or rock music t-shirts, posters, fliers, dolls, books and buttons. And actual records!

Recently Beth Kendig Alexander and I lamented having tossed out our stacks of Beatles bubblegum cards. "I could've retired on those!" she sighed. Yeah yeah yeah, I agreed; I can picture the very moment when I pitched some 400 of 'em in a misguided attempt at putting away childish things. (If only we could've predicted E-bay.)

Still, I have scrapbooks -- although far "scrappier" than Mary's tidy tomes. They include sketches and notes passed in class. And a ticket for a bogus color-TV raffle by a high-school fraternity (we can laugh now).

So, befitting this Halloween and All Saints Day weekend, we leaf through our scrapbooks, recall our old haunts and are visited by "ghosts" of our past.

Keep 'em coming! Send me word of your collections, curiosities and reunions for possible use in a column. Quirky, schmaltzy, whatever.